Photo: Rich Rebuilds
When Tesla presented its own insurance policy, the company’s advocates saw that as an innovative move. It was more of a survival measure to keep the company’s EVs more desirable: other insurance companies were charging a large amount of money to protect them. The reason is simple: any damage to a battery pack can cost $20,000, which will turn most vehicles into a total loss. Thatcham Research started a five-month investigation to help insurance companies with challenges such as this one.
According to Autocar Business, the British safety body believes people know very little about how to repair battery electric cars and how insurance processes work with them. In combustion-engined car crashes, anything that damages the body structure usually makes it unworthy of repair. With electric vehicles, a simple broken cooling nipple in a battery pack may do the trick, as Donald Bone discovered with his Model 3.
To investigate all the implications and differences in repairs that EVs may impose, Thatcham Research will have the assistance of LV. This insurance company will help with real-world claims data for the study modeling. Autocar Business states that another important partner will be Synetiq, a recycling specialist that will assist in discovering what can be recovered, reused, or will simply have to be recycled.
This is an essential step because insurance companies’ demands may force automakers to create battery electric vehicles that are designed to last longer than the current ones. Still using Tesla as the leading example, the nipple situation was caused because Tesla conceived all its battery packs to be only replaceable, not repairable. In other words, if they have any issues, all the company will do is change them for one that works. That is also a strategy with seats, which have to be swapped for new ones should you have any problems – even with a seat belt component, as Jennifer Sensiba discovered with a simple test drive in a Model Y.
When it comes to battery packs, that may be more of a technical impossibility. The Electrified Garage once repaired a Model S battery pack by replacing a defective module. Jason Hughes – the Tesla Hacker – disputed that this was an effective fix because it was extremely difficult to balance different modules: any behavior discrepancy would make the battery management system (BMS) shut the pack down.
If that is difficult with old technology, it should get even worse with cell-to-pack (which has no modules) and cell-to-body construction methods, which save weight and increase energy density in battery packs. That all makes the idea of swappable modules that Ample proposed and CATL implemented with its Choco-SEBs even more appealing. In any crash, only the damaged modules would need to be replaced. Whatever Thatcham Research has to say about all this will be very welcome.
To investigate all the implications and differences in repairs that EVs may impose, Thatcham Research will have the assistance of LV. This insurance company will help with real-world claims data for the study modeling. Autocar Business states that another important partner will be Synetiq, a recycling specialist that will assist in discovering what can be recovered, reused, or will simply have to be recycled.
This is an essential step because insurance companies’ demands may force automakers to create battery electric vehicles that are designed to last longer than the current ones. Still using Tesla as the leading example, the nipple situation was caused because Tesla conceived all its battery packs to be only replaceable, not repairable. In other words, if they have any issues, all the company will do is change them for one that works. That is also a strategy with seats, which have to be swapped for new ones should you have any problems – even with a seat belt component, as Jennifer Sensiba discovered with a simple test drive in a Model Y.
When it comes to battery packs, that may be more of a technical impossibility. The Electrified Garage once repaired a Model S battery pack by replacing a defective module. Jason Hughes – the Tesla Hacker – disputed that this was an effective fix because it was extremely difficult to balance different modules: any behavior discrepancy would make the battery management system (BMS) shut the pack down.
If that is difficult with old technology, it should get even worse with cell-to-pack (which has no modules) and cell-to-body construction methods, which save weight and increase energy density in battery packs. That all makes the idea of swappable modules that Ample proposed and CATL implemented with its Choco-SEBs even more appealing. In any crash, only the damaged modules would need to be replaced. Whatever Thatcham Research has to say about all this will be very welcome.
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